Can the Courts block President Trump from firing US Government Officials?

For many who supported Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the past two months have been breathtaking. Of course, for those progressive Democrats who preferred “Sleepy Joe” Biden’s term in office, every day brings a new horror.

During an interview with CNN‘s Jake Tapper, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) summed up the perspective of the left: “Donald Trump is a chaos agent…[h]e’s unleashing chaos on the American people. We are not losing in court. We are actually winning in court. The Trump administration is losing. We are partnering on at least 79 different lawsuits that have been brought related to about 35 different illegal or unconstitutional executive orders. And the Trump administration continues to lose in court, after court, after court… Donald Trump is intentionally unleashing extremism and outrageous things on the American people to try to disorient everyday Americans. Donald Trump is not a king. We will never bend the knee. Not now, not ever.”

Remember when the party out of power was called the “loyal opposition?”

Clearly, Representative Jeffries used some extreme rhetoric of his own during his statement, particularly in his discussion of the Trump Administration’s losses in court, reversals which are allegedly based on the President’s “illegal and unconstitutional” Executive Orders.

In a previous article, we discussed that these “losses” are exaggerated. The Executive Order on Birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens was objectively unconstitutional; the freezing of funds for foreign aid is not.

One activity that has led to some confusion (at least among Democrats) is the firing of various government officials such as the heads of various agencies and governmental offices, an example of what Jeffries and his fellow progressives call “chaos.” (For some reason, no Democrat, except for maybe Texas Representative Henry Cueller, ever described the situation at the Southern Border during the Biden years as “chaotic”; but that is a subject for another time.)

“In an unprecedented purge of the military’s senior leadership,” CNN reports, “President Donald Trump announced he was dismissing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown and replacing him with Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan ‘Razin’ Caine…[m]inutes later, [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth released a statement announcing he’d fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the chief of the Navy…Hegseth called Franchetti a ‘DEI hire’ in his 2024 book, in which he wrote: ‘If naval operations suffer, at least we can hold our heads high. Because at least we have another first! The first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — hooray.’”

Then there was this story from the Associated Press; “The Trump administration has fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and perform other functions as part of its broad-based effort to downsize government. The firings, which weren’t publicly announced but were confirmed by Democratic senators and House members, come amid what has been a chaotic rollout of an aggressive program to eliminate thousands of federal jobs.”

According to Reuters, “[t]he campaign by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the U.S. bureaucracy [has resulted in the] firing [of] more than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans. Workers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated…[t]he firings, reported by Reuters and other major U.S. media outlets, are in addition to the roughly 75,000 workers who have taken a buyout that Trump and Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily, according to the White House. That equals about 3% of the 2.3 million person civilian workforce.”

Of course, not everyone fired during this allegedly “chaotic” realignment is taking their severance pay and looking for another job. Several, particularly the heads of certain federal agencies, have sought to keep their jobs with court actions – and some have been successful.

Judge John Wilson’s (ret.) article concludes tomorrow

Quick Analysis

Can the Courts block President Trump from firing US Government Officials? Conclusion

Can the Courts block President Trump from firing US Government Officials? Isn’t Donald Trump the “boss” of Executive Branch employees? Can’t he fire and hire these workers at will? As with so many legal questions, the answer is – it depends. As far as Donald Trump is concerned, he has the unequivocal power to control those employed by the Executive Branch. By his Executive Order “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce,” the President asserts that “Article II of the United States Constitution vests the President with the sole and exclusive authority over the executive branch, including the authority to manage the Federal workforce to ensure effective execution of Federal law.” President Trump explains that “[a] critical aspect of this executive function is the responsibility to maintain professionalism and accountability within the civil service. This accountability is sorely lacking today. Only 41 percent of civil service supervisors are confident that they can remove an employee who engaged in insubordination or serious misconduct. Even fewer supervisors –- 26 percent — are confident that they can remove an employee for poor performance.” To remedy this situation, the President asserts that “[a]ccountability is essential for all Federal employees, but it is especially important for those who are in policy-influencing positions. These personnel are entrusted to shape and implement actions that have a significant impact on all Americans. Any power they have is delegated by the President, and they must be accountable to the President, who is the only member of the executive branch, other than the Vice President, elected and directly accountable to the American people. In recent years, however, there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership. Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.” Therefore, “[p]rinciples of good administration…necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.” But what exactly does Article II of the US Constitution say? “[The President shall] have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Court of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” It wasn’t until 1926 that the US Supreme Court decided affirmatively what authority Article II gives the President over the dismissal of Executive Branch employees, in the case of Myers v. United States. When a postmaster challenged his removal from office, Chief Justice (and former US President) William Howard Taft, took the opportunity to state that “Article II grants to the President the executive power of the Government, i. e. , the general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers—a conclusion confirmed by his obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Chief Justice Taft seemed to believe this power to be fairly extensive, writing that “[t]here is nothing in the Constitution which permits a distinction between the removal of the head of a department or a bureau, when he discharges a political duty of the President or exercises his discretion, and the removal of executive officers engaged in the discharge of their other normal duties. The imperative reasons requiring an unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates in their most important duties must, therefore, control the interpretation of the Constitution as to all appointed by him.” According to Justia, “the result of [the Myers decision] was a rule that, as was immediately pointed out, exposed the so-called ‘independent agencies’ – the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the like – to presidential domination.” This “loophole” led to the 1935 Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Humphrey was a member of the Federal Trade Commission, who was removed from his post by President Franklin Roosevelt over a difference of opinion regarding public policy. In distinguishing the Myers case, Justice George Sutherland wrote that ‘[a] postmaster is an executive officer restricted to the performance of executive functions. He is charged with no duty at all related to either the legislative or judicial power. The actual decision in the Myers case finds support in the theory that such an office is merely one of the units in the executive department and, hence, inherently subject to the exclusive and illimitable power of removal by the Chief Executive, whose subordinate and aide he is. . . . It goes no farther; much less does it include an officer who occupies no place in the executive department and who exercises no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President.’” However, a member of an independent agency, such as the Federal Trade Commission, was entitled to different treatment by the Chief Executive. “The Federal Trade Commission is an administrative body created by Congress to carry into effect legislative policies embodied in the statute,” Justice Sutherland wrote. “Such a body cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or eye of the executive. Its duties are performed without executive leave and, in the contemplation of the statute, must be free from executive control…We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named, [the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Court of Claims]…” The reason to treat an appointed member of an independent agency differently than […]